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Show SOUTHERN PACIFIC DISASTER. Tho floods in the Humboldc valley are unprecedented. When the old Central Pacific was built, the road was loosely constructed and there were no steel bridges and but little protection offered against unusually high water, and yet that pioneer line continued, with scarcely a.n interruption, to do business. The only serious blockades were those which occurred in winter in the high Sierras, when push plows were unequal to the task of clearing the line of the snowdrifts. When Harriman obtained control of the Southern Pacific system, he virtually rebuilt the road, spanned the streams with steel bridges resting on abutments of concrete and riprapping every point of possiblo attack by the elements. Thus fortified, the new road must ' have been battered by the worst storms and highest water ever experienced ex-perienced in Nevada to have weakened and collapsed over a stretch of many miles. The ioterruption of traffic over the Southern Pacific west of .Ogdcn, presents a striking object lesson in the importance of the line as a link in the handling of transcontinental business.. The San Pedro, or Clark road, was obliterated and the Western Pacific destroyed de-stroyed so that they ceased to exist as operated railroads, and still the effect was imperceptible on through business, but with the tying up of the Southern Pacific, the whole country has felt the loss and - the transportation business of the entire western portion of the United States has been deranged. From all accounts, the railroad officials arc laboring to the utmost ut-most to restore traffic and they will do all that hun effort can do to bring about an early reopening of the line. |